Down With False Democracy, Up With True Self-Government

The Right and Left claim to be "democratic" while forgetting the liberal and republican principles that have made America great.

It’s become commonplace to bemoan the lack of civility in American public discourse. Whether or not political coarseness is at an all-time high is debatable—much of the campaign material from, say, the Election of 1800 is certainly no-holds-barred—but the perception matters more than the substance. Certainly, for those in the political fray, compromise is far less feasible than it used to be.

But what is the fight actually about? The Right and the Left are really contesting over irreconcilable visions of self-government, but they don’t realize this is so because they use that word to mean different things. Both sides champion democracy and uncritically assume that in fighting for democracy they are preserving a society free of domination by political institutions. The problem is that Left and Right treat democracy as synonymous with self-government; it thus follows that the only way to preserve self-government from the barbarians at the gate is further democratization.

Whether or not democracy is the same as self-government is not merely a linguistic quibble. As the great political scientist Vincent Ostrom argued in his Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerability of Democracies, the language we use in public discourse shapes our ability to act collectively. Corruption of language means corruption of concepts, which imperils our ability to govern ourselves by reflection and choice rather than brute force.

The word “democracy” derives from the Greek demos (“people”) and kratos (“power” or “rule”). At its simplest, it means that the people exercise power. This is obviously too broad a definition for any sociopolitical blueprint, except perhaps as a starting point. What does it mean for “the people” (whoever they are) to “rule” (whatever that means)? What sorts of institutions are conducive to popular government while simultaneously guarding against popular government’s darker tendencies?

To the Left, democracy finds its expression in the primacy of public policy. This is something scientific and value-free, except in the minimal and surely understandable sense that it’s what all right-thinking people prefer. It’s not an exaggeration to say that by “democracy,” the Left means “consensual apoliticism.” The vision is of a benevolent and far-reaching state, validated by popular assent, with a mandate to improve society from the top-down. The mindset underlying this vision of democracy is summed up by President Obama’s famous remark “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.” Society is democratic to the extent that it regularly allows the state to manage its affairs, for the former’s own good. Any resistance to this process is not democracy; it is populism, which in contrast to democracy is parochial, reactionary, and dangerous.

To the Right, democracy finds its expression in the primacy of the popular will. It may seem strange that the Right has embraced a definition of democracy that traces directly to Rousseau, the arch-profit of revolutionary liberalism and a chief antecedent of Progressivism. In fact, it’s a perfectly understandable response to the perceived snobbery and condescension of the Left: in contrast to the egghead policy wonks who want to regulate every aspect of your life and tax you back to the Bronze Age, we just want a government made up of “our guys” who reflect “our values.” The mindset underlying this vision of democracy is President Trump’s boast “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning.” The rhetoric is sharp, direct, and incredibly effective. It’s a call to embrace tribal politics, which for the Left is a repudiation of democracy, but for the Right is its apotheosis.

Both of these views have some claim to be democratic. The Left’s conception emphasizes reasoned public discourse. The Right’s conception emphasizes actual popular control of government. But neither of these, by themselves, constitutes self-government. Both sides are sacrificing civility on an altar to a false god.

Both sides have forgotten that genuine self-government rests on the additional pillars of liberalism and republicanism. We need liberalism to protect the rights of citizens, which they possess not by the beneficence of their governments but by their nature as human beings. We need republicanism to maintain the political architecture where power can check power, forestalling the possibility of both bureaucratic and majoritarian tyranny, by creating a shared space for mannered dialogue and civil compromise.

The irony is that, despite their surface differences, the political visions of the Left and Right aren’t so different. Unconstrained by the finer graces of liberalism and republicanism, the Left’s program results in bureausclerotic oligarchy. Similarly unconstrained, the Right’s program results in the arbitrary whim of whatever strongman currently holds power. In neither case is there any robust responsibility mechanism holding the governors accountable to the governed. And in neither case do the original conceptions of democracy find expression: we have neither reasoned discourse nor rule by the people, but a Frankenstein-like amalgamation of the worst traits of each.

The only way out is to renew the unique aspect of the American project: a people who govern themselves. Self-government means reasoned discourse, and the legitimacy of the popular will, and liberal commitments to the protection of minority rights, and republican commitments to the protection of the political institutions that make this all possible. There is simply no way forward—other than lowering the stakes of politics by giving place to civility and compromise—that results in anything other than mutually assured destruction.

American politics has become an arms race. Everyone has an incentive to ratchet up their capacity to inflict overwhelming force on their political enemies. But we’ve reached the point where stocking the armory requires depleting the political and cultural capital that makes the American experiment worth continuing. As always, the only way to win an arms race is not to play. Self-government—necessarily reasonable, popular, liberal, and republican—is the only way we know to make politics anything other than a war of all against all.

Alexander William Salter is an assistant professor in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. He is also the Comparative Economics Research Fellow at TTU’s Free Market Institute.

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9 Responses to Down With False Democracy, Up With True Self-Government

The downside of democracy is that it often promotes the views of the most extreme members of society. Outside of material incentives like the spoils system most people are not that interested in politics. Extremists tend to be the most politically active people. Old-style machine politics was often corrupt but it tended to produce more moderate politicians because broad electability was key.

Today both parties are dominated by issue activists. They tend to be ideologically extreme compared to the population as a whole. However, they control a good portion of campaign funding and most of the ground troops needed by politicians to run campaigns. Issue activists control the primary process and not the party bosses in their smoke-filled rooms. For example, this is why you see the Democratic Party and Republican Party taking positions on abortion that are extreme compared to the electorate as a whole.

Compared to the mid-20th century, contemporary American politics is much more open and democratic yet Americans increasingly hate their public institutions and have less trust in them compared to 60 or 70 years ago. More democracy and transparency is probably not the answer to this problem.

We need to let politicians build machines and horse-trade more which means Americans will have to get over their hatred of political machines, pork-barrel politics and other things that appear unsavory but used to make politics in this country work and reduced extremism. Just to use one example, LBJ got his civil rights bill passed by promising Republican Charles Halleck a NASA research grant for his district.

Didn’t Madison (in the Federalist Papers, number I forget which) define a “republic” as simply a representative democracy? I think you’re attributing to republicanism virtues it does not intrinsically possess.

I feel the author here set up a straw man for both left and right and then tore them down. As a conservative person, I prefer to think self-rule means “I rule myself”, and the general role of government is to ensure that in ruling myself, I am not stepping on your ability to rule yourself.

So I don’t mind us all coming together, through government, to agree on mechanisms in which our individual actions do not cause harm, or at least minimize harm, to others (think property rights or pollution).

I see liberals maybe taking a different tack, in which government seeks to mandate certain actions that will provide benefit to others (say increase taxes to provide for the disabled). I’m not terribly opposed to that conceptually, the problem is it becomes much more tricky to do that in a way that creates consensus and accounts for harmful side effects.

A genuine understanding of America by conservatives would include protection of many liberal values.

From rural barn raising community efforts and grange hall investments, to urban community efforts by political machines, Americans found ways to take care of each other. Americans’ idea of law and order was also often heavy on the law part, not just order imposed.

If conservative includes preservation of those liberal values, there is really much common ground.

That common ground is not currently occupied by Left or Right. They’ve each in their own way wandered off from the American tradition of liberal values.

That is not to say that the past expression of such values was perfect, nor the exact way we should do it now. Big city political machines are not the way, for example.

We can however grow our values with an eye to improving them, keeping in mind all of our traditional concerns.

I really would have liked to see more discussion and speculation from Mr. Salter on the underlying causes of the sharp political divide we are seeing today. When did we become so unwilling to compromise with our enemies (which word regrettably feels more appropriate than “opponents”) and why? I do not think that the hostility between Left and Right today is a new phenomenon by any means, and the author is right to make reference to the perception rather than the substance of the political divide. However, it seems that there are relatively few people who recognize it, whereas most are swept up in the wave of hysteria with not a clue as to where they are being taken.

The blame for this can be put squarely on the leftist media. Every day, television news devotes its airtime to whipping everyone into a frenzy over what usually amounts to something totally trivial and insignificant. An off-color joke from Trump, Melania’s choice of clothing, an Obama-era policy not done away with by Trump, etc. are all woven into a nightmarish narrative that our country has been hijacked by fascists and Nazis (these two terms are apparently interchangeable these days) and that our “democracy” is doomed. Neither side is interested in compromise, but the Left screams louder than does the Right. They want to “open up the conversation,” but that “conversation” will take place only by their own rules, effectively rendering it a rambling, incoherent monologue because the other side cannot speak at all.

Mr. Salter has accurately described a sickness in our political climate, but he has not made a diagnosis nor presented anything in the way of a cure. A vague call to “lower the stakes of politics by giving place to civility and compromise” is not going to solve our problem any more than legislating a higher minimum wage will fix a stagnant economy.

Need I remind you that the US is not and never has been a ‘ democracy ‘ ?

Simple fact . The US has been and still is ( barely ) a Democratic Republic [ governed by representation not the vote of the people ] .. not a Democracy where all decisions are decided by the people not representatives .. similar yet not the same

To find a genuine democracy and correct me if I’m wrong the only true democracy in the entire world you’ll have to cast your gaze upon …. Switzerland . Where the true principals of democracy are practiced . e.g. One Man/Woman One Vote . Everything and anything of consequence must be voted on . Majority rules . Voting is considered to be a responsibility not just a right . All eligible and able must participate under penalty of law . Genuine democracy at its finest . And yes .. it works … beautifully I might add . Due in no small part to the overall education of the Swiss not to mention their insistence ( by law ) of civil behavior and discourse .. [ which is not to be confused with political correctness [ .. thereby negating the Tyranny of the Masses .. which our Democratic Republic not only allows but endorses